The worst time to be in Minnesota is Spring and Fall (Minneapolis: house, live in)

[TimtheGuy]

With global warming, our MN winters have become very tolerable. The last few years we have experienced only a few nasty cold snaps.

The bad part of it, is that the warmer weather has cut into my ice fishing season. The good part is that you can get out and open water fish. I have all ready been fishing 3 times in '07 on the Mississippi between Prescott and Red Wing.

6 months of winter?????? Not even close. More like 3 months.

[TimtheGuy]

Get a nice jacket, boots, hat and gloves and it won't even phase a normal person. Today's outdoor gear is soooo much better than the stuff we grew up with.

[Lindenin]

If this becomes an argument about the weather, we're not going to win! Minnesotans are proud of their state, but not so naive to claim that we have winters that everyone would love.

The fact is that Minnesota is one of the few northern states that has been able to stay in relatively good shape on the in-migration statistics during the past few years. We gained from other states between 90-00, and are pretty flat so far this decade. Many states in the midwest and northeast are losing population to southern states.

I guess you could argue that many of those leaving are retirees and don't necessarily help the workforce in the state, but I think this board shows there are exceptions to that rule as well.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by PowderSpringsDad

Yup, no longer have to experience 6 months of winter, outrageous property taxes and higher state income tax.

Have at it. You guys deserve MN.

Having lived in both MN and GA now, I'd say each state has its good points and its bad points. I'll take Twin Cities traffic anyday, and to be honest I prefer MN winters to GA summers, but that's just me.

[monti]

You prefer MN *Winters* to GA *summers*

That's completely insane.

You'd rather have -38 w/ windchill instead of 90 degrees and sunny, with fishing and lakes and fun time, and even in the winter still mad warm

WHAAAT? That doesn't make sense, please extrapolate...

[ryflem]

I don't think the fall is all that bad, but it's the spring that really gets to me. I'm in track, and I feel that when track starts, winter should stop.

[Lindenin]

[quote=monti;545466]

You'd rather have -38 w/ windchill instead of 90 degrees and sunny

QUOTE]

This is a great one. Let's see.... -38 would be the coldest day ever on record in the history of MInneapolis (record low is -34, and that has happened once). Yet, 90 in the summer in GA is your average summer day.

Comparing an extreme to an average... nice technique, but doesn't work. A better question is: would I rather be chilled by the cold or be dying from the heat? Personally, I'll take chilled.

And our fishing is better than Georgia's.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

I probably speak for the majority of the population when I say the worst two months in Minnesota are January and February.

April and October bad months? Come on atleast you can go outside for more than 10 minutes without putting yourself at risk for frostbite.

[golfgal]

To each is own but personally, I LOVE to have the freezing cold in the winter because it keeps out the creepy crawlies like snakes that bite and kill you! We also don't have termites which is a big plus in my book. Oh, and fire ants, nope, none of those. I will take a few days of sub zero temps to not have to deal with those things year round! Now, I will give you that 18° on April 7th isn't the norm and I was really hoping to golf today, but it doesn't last forever and I did golf in shorts a couple weeks ago when it was 81°.

[tvdxer]

Originally Posted by Dingler

I have spent much of my life in Minnesota and generally I think the quality of life is higher than most places. The worst thing about Minnesota is the weather. I think April and October are the worst months weather wise. Yes, there are some nice days in both months but in general it is cold and windy.

While the rest of the country is enjoying warm sunny weather in April and October it can be very cold in Minnesota. It can be below freezing for a high temperature as late as April 20th and as early as October 10th. After a long cold winter that can be very discouraging.

This has been a particularly bad start to April. The ground here is covered with about 8 inches of snow (12+ earlier this week), and temperatures have been below freezing, consistently, since the 2nd, despite lots of sunshine. In fact, temperatures fell into the single digits on a few days this month.

Yet I would disagree with your thoughts about fall. September and early October are generally beautiful in Minnesota, even up north. There's nothing like 65-degree late September days with near-peak foliage.